Thor Ragnarok Casting News

With all the (well-deserved) fuss over Captain America:  Civil War, it may be a bit easy to overlook the other third sequel/Avenger team-up movie in the form of Thor: Ragnarok.  Yes, the Thor/Hulk buddy cop movie that may or may not be out to stop the Asgardian Apocalypse has made some announcements.  And beyond Natalie Portman being nowhere to be seen  (and she’s probably not that upset about that, truth be told), we have some news.  So, who’s in?

For starters, beyond the usual suspects of Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Anthony Hopkins, and whoever is playing the different members of the Warriors Three this time, plus Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, we now have confirmations on two actresses who we knew were in the movie but until now were not playing an identified role.

One Tessa Thompson is in as Brunhilde the Valkyrie.

I’ll be honest.  I have no idea who this actress is.  But she’s apparently the new love interest for Thor, and the character she plays has been known to swing a sword from the back of a winged horse with a bunch of like-equipped associates.  Given who the next person I will be getting to is playing, we may see a bit of the old escorting the dead thing that Valkyries are known to do.

Yes, we’ll be seeing Cate Blanchett as Hela, the goddess of the dead.

Not only will she be an answer for a future Watson trivia game that will kill the podcast around here, but she can bring that elven regality to a role that will hopefully go better than the last time a Thor movie pulled out some elves.  I generally like these movies, but those elves were terribly memorable, were they?

Karl Urban is another bad guy, in the form of Skurge the Executioner.

Skurge is basically just hired muscle with a habit of trying to kill Thor.  Oh, sure, some of the source stories show him redeeming himself, but he’s usually smitten with the Enchantress, who’s not in this movie.  Will he be in love with Hela here?  Or Loki?  Oh, hey, it’s another Lord of the Rings actor!

Oh, and here’s my favorite:  Jeff Goldblum will be the Grandmaster.

So, why am I loving this one?  Because, first off, Jeff Goldblum is awesome and plays eccentrics well.  What’s the Grandmaster’s deal?  He’s one of the Elders of the Universe.  Those guys are more or less brothers who have evolved to very powerful beings, each of whom is obsessed with one thing.  Grandmaster’s deal is he loves games of chance.  He just can’t say no to a wager.  But who else is an Elder?  The Collector, who is obsessed with collecting.  And when did we see an MCU Collector?  In Guardians of the Galaxy, as played by Benicio del Toro.

That means that Goldblum is playing a brother of sorts to del Toro.

That’s kinda awesome.

By the by, you know who Thanos originally got the Infinity gems from?  He beat a bunch of the Elders of the Universe for them.  Grandmaster had the mind gem or something.  So, who knows?  Maybe there will be a quick Thanos appearance on top of everything else.